WHERE is FREEDOM : Alfano’s plan and the struggle for freedom
find the original article here: https://noborders20miglia.noblogs.org/post/2016/05/16/where-is-freedom-il-piano-alfano-e-la-lotta-per-la-liberta-ita/
The Alfano [interior italian minister, sic] plan failed. Affirming this serenely doesn’t mean ignoring our anger with round-ups in the streets of Ventimiglia, the violence of the cops in the police station and the deportation of 50 people from the french-Italian border and the Hotspot of Trapani, where there are still detained. Obviously, those declarations of the Italian interior minister had real its real concreteness within various abuses and violence. Nervetheless, the “plan to pull back migrants from Ventimiglia”, proudly claimed by the prefecture of Imperia has failed.
In the following days of the Alfano statement, the movement of the travelling people did not stop and tuesday yet, the train line Ventimiglia-Nice stayed closed due to the presence of a group of migrants on the railway in the middle of the day who were trying to cross the border following it. Meanwhile in the police station, cops were having some difficulty to complete the identification of the persons arrested in city: the even more extreme forms of resistance multiplied. The answer of the police headquarters (questura) of Imperia , reinforced by 60 more men – in addition with the 60 useless “Alpini” has been highly forceful and publicized. The goal was certainly to satisfy the racists of this country showing up a reinforced militarized state presence. A violent spectacle. Noneless, it did not substantially block the persons to reach Ventimiglia and even breaking in the border on several points.
Today in Ventimiglia, there is at least 150 migrants, proving by their mere presence how believing to confine women and men with arrests, detention and deportation. If the police didn’t feel any problem with arresting people on the way to the Caritas [only place where they can get food legally, sic] or with their vehement eviction of the Foce del Roya Camp [at the estuary of the river] while migrants were in line to receive a food pack, it does not mean the Alfano Plan managed to break and submit the determination of the persons in travel. Persons jailed in Trapani called us, they are ok (as ok you can be in a detension center…) and they can’t wait to regain freedom to restart their own trip. We are waiting for them here.
After the eviction of the Foce del Roya, a group of migrant found shelter under a bridge. A awfull place, on the riverside of the city but more upstream. In this marginalized zone of the city economy, they found some minimal peace from the everyday vexations of the police. Here, the freedom of those who travel re-organized itself again. In the same days several assemblies took place where appeared on several occasions the strong will to stay together and stand united in front of the police offensive. The migrants decided to participate to the demonstration against violence and deportation, and they clarified on different occasion the reasons of this protest. The concern is as much about the closure of the border as the violence of the Italian and French police. Strong is the desire to get out of invisibility, to reassess their own presence and common will to cross the border. The watchword remains the same: FREEDOM! HURRYA!
Our enemies did not really appreciate. Medias as police prove a certain nervousness, trying to deny some of the testimonies that activists gathered and spread. Intimidations towards those same people present on the territory who try to monitor the border went growing. They would have obviously preferred more discreteness. Our trust must not go to those ones, but rather towards the ones who directly testified it to us. We are used to take seriously any hurt perpetrated by the armed hand of the state. We know perfectly how much attention those bodily inflicted injuries as those ones irreparable they will keep with them need. When we use some words like torture, violence, deportation, we don’t do it with a light heart, but the friendship that bounds us to those persons pushes us to say what is happening. Testimonies brought out in our statements get born as promises whispered, and breach out as a shout in front of all the silence surrounding those events. Maybe We will state to gather medical reports. But with or without them, We are not afraid of denials and intimidations We know what we are saying and it will not be an online journal or an officer who will stop to talk.
As person in solidarity, we stay together with those who travel, persisting in supporting those persons that governments would like to see invisible and passive. As ennemies of the borders, We want to give a continuation to the same words pronounced in our recent statements. “To extend solidarity”, “to stop deportations” are not mere slogans for us. To those who support migrants and the action of activists at the border we ask to make a step forward. If, as we said before, the plans of the interior ministry and of the police headquarters did not reached their goals, it doesn’t mean we are not awaiting for a new attacks to the freedom of those travelling without documents. The camp on the river of the Roya is not a safe place, and in the station as in the streets, arrests are continuing. New evictions and deportations could occur. We must be ready, and to not restrain within a role of mere testimony. We don’t miss goals to reach! The first one is the real blockade of any deportation, standing at any arrest and forced displacement of person in travel anyway it is possible. And even if We are not on the way of a deportation, it doesn’t stop anybody to put into crisis the free movement of goods and people in other places, expressing so her or his own solidarity towards migrants. The second objective is to denounce the complicity of those who take advantage of the deprtation system, boycotting by any means necessary, all those who make profit with forced displacement and detention of human beings, starting by the Italian Post Service [facilitating the airplane for the deportation to Sicily]
At the same time we strongly feel the necessity to spread the solidarity, giving concret support to those who are travelling, building materially the possibility for all to act here and now as if the border did not exist. The freedom We are claiming for all needs a grassroots and large dimension that, from practices of everyday mutual aid, breaks brick by brick the legalistic discourse on the management of fluxes, reception, etc. In a few words, We believe that from the relations of direct and widespread solidarity the distinction between legal and illegal loses its pertinence, opeing the way to a form of solidarity towards undocumented persons that put into crisis the systems of control of the Fortress Europe.
Finally, Ventimiglia. In a short time We will publish a statement about today’s events, during which we found ourself protesting together. The presence of persons in solidarity at the borders remains important, but We are aware own mere presence is not enough to make an end to a cage and border regime. This is why we already call for days of action during the month of June, in order to make a step forwards in the international struggle against all borders, anywhere they are.
Freedom is where We organize! Some persons in solidarity in Ventimiglia On the side of those who travel, against any border!
no border serbia 